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This might get a little long, but I wanted to give this perspective as someone who loves gaming and grew up on sega and I wanted to see what others think of some of this and your own experiences.

As I said in my introduction I grew up on sega mostly. NES actually was my first console but I was four and had about five or six games total before I got a Genesis. I skipped 32 bits entirely, and went straight to Dreamcast from there as a teenager before getting my own job and money and buying my own games and consoles at which point things go all over the place and I've bought and sold more consoles than I can count.

So I want to headline first of all that despite growing up on Sega I never hated Nintendo and understood its appeals completely. A lot of my perspectives come from getting used to certain styles of play. I enjoy 2d Sonic more than 2d mario. To this day the only 2d mario I can really get deeply engrossed in is the first one even though I've beaten World and played the american 2 and 3. Its just a preference for play style and nothing more. I respect the other Mario's as great games but I know they aren't really for me, though I mean to give yoshi's island a shot before starting yoshi story.

The same can certainly be said for Zelda. I appreciate it, I completely get it....I prefer Beyond Oasis. Is it a better game? I don't know, maybe not. Its derivative to be certain, but it just plays more to my taste, espicially the move set. Attacking for me in classic zelda including and perhaps especially the much loved Link to the Past feels awkward for me.

Donkey Kong Country I also understand, but find it frustrating. This one is particularly interesting to note; lots of the mechanics in DKC would encourage a sega person to play it like Sonic and that does not work which results in a lot of frustration.

Probably the only franchise from Nintendo in the 2d era I really dig on is Metroid and that is probably because Sega doesn't have anything quite like it.

NOW....When Nintnedo enters the third dimension with the N64, everything changes. Suddenly I can't get enough Mario. I crave Zelda. Every first party and rare game is overtly appealing even as someone who played dreamcast. Everything here works for me. Part of that I think is due to Nintnedo games going 3d took a very different approach. I love Sonic Adventure, I think though it is a different experience at its core from Mario 64. To a degree, I think this occurs also because to me, N64 is a reboot.

Yeah....Its weird, but to me it makes sense. Nintnedo was moving into a whole new dimension, focusing on wildly different styles of play, and everything on it sort of feels like what we call in movies a 'soft reboot'. Its kind of amazing how this was pulled off in such a way as to not hurt veteran fans while being totally welcoming to new comers.

Mario 64 requires no previous knowledge of any other Mario game. You understand very quickly magical kingdom, this dumpy happy guy is 'friends' with the princess, mean dragon king dude has her trapped in the castle, go save her. The premise is simple and its more obvious still when you look at what comes after it. Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey feel like sequels. Their premises feel like something extra added in. Imagine SNES and NES never happened. You can't easily picture Sunshine being the very first Mario game to ever exist, but Mario 64 I certainly can. Even the mechanics don't assume you know anything.

Zelda its even more clear. The zelda timeline is hotly debated online constantly, but really you could ignore EVERY 2d game in the franchise and it all fits together just fine. Ocarina of Time, when it was released, was the first chronologically in the story. Once again, it could have been the first zelda game ever and it holds up just the same. This goes for starfox as well and though I don't know as much about it I have a feeling it could also work for Kirby Crystal Shards and DK64.

I still frequently go back and dabble with SNES hoping to catch that bug like everyone else did, but I just can't. However N64 makes this sega priest a Nintendo faithful and I think its because it really does act as a secondary entry point, a soft reboot that does not alienate classic Nintendo fans but can serve as a jumping off point for anyone new that wants to get into Nintendo media without ever really feeling like you absolutely must move further backwards to "get it".

Always good to read someone else's story, especially when it comes from the other side of the isle. I was the opposite. Owned both a NES, SNES, and Gameboy. The only time I tried Sega stuff was at a cousins house who had a Genesis. I also had a friend that had a Dreamcast, but I was well in to the N64 by then.

Did you ever wish you could make the switch or own both growing up? I wanted the genesis so badly that the Christmas night before I knew I was getting it, I actually dreamed I was accepting it on an award show and like thanking my parents and stuff XD

Now if I had that dream today Kanye West would have taken the mic from me an said "I'm real proud of you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but the SNES is the greatest console of all time man! Of all time!"

The most present memory in my mind of wishing I had an SNES was seeing Donkey Kong Country at a friends house a game that, ironically, I now have trouble playing. N64 I begged for but couldn't get. I remember thinking man even if all I had was JUST Mario 64, that would be enough I could play that game and that game alone for a year.